


Compound Interest

by SallyExactly



Series: And Sweetest In The Gale [2]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SallyExactly/pseuds/SallyExactly
Summary: Later days of the reunited Flynns.





	1. Day +1

**Author's Note:**

> For RedGold.

He woke slowly from a delicious dream of holding Lorena. The safe house intruded relentlessly on his consciousness, and he sighed.

But the smell of her hair, and the feel of her feet against his shins, did not fade.

His eyes snapped open.

Lorena was nestled against him in the narrow bed, her arm tucked around his waist. Iris was on the cot, one arm flung off the edge, snuffling softly in her sleep in that way he remembered meant she was probably coming down with a cold.

The sight of the two of them knocked all the wind out of him, and his eyes filled with tears. Even in the privacy of his thoughts, he had no words.

He managed not to cry into Lorena’s hair, and to pull himself together before she woke up. But the way she stirred sleepily before opening her eyes and smiling at him nearly undid him all over again.

“Hey,” she whispered, and kissed the corner of his mouth.

At this rate, he was going to spend the rest of his life as an incoherent gibbering idiot, but there were worse fates. He gave into temptation, slid his fingers through her hair that had haunted his dreams, and kissed her, thorough and slow. Then he gave into temptation some more and cradled her against him, pressing his face against her hair.

He was going to hell. He didn’t deserve this. But he’d _never_ deserved this, not even when his hands were clean. If his choices were to add to his own perdition by enjoying what he wasn’t good enough for, and to walk away from Lorena and Iris and break their hearts…

That was no choice at all.

Lorena looked around. “Love the ambience in here,” she murmured.

He snorted. “Change whatever you want.” He stroked her hair. He might be going to hell for this, but right now, it was heaven.

The serpent hissed its way into his mind. “Lorena…”

“Mmm?”

He closed his eyes. “You know I’m not the man you saw the day before yesterday.”

She cupped his cheek, and he leaned into her touch. “I know I don’t understand all of it,” she said softly. “But I understand things have changed. You’ve changed.”

He shuddered as she stroked her thumb across his cheek. “I can’t help thinking that if you still wanna be here, you must not… you must not understand.”

“I know,” she said. “But trust me.”

He opened his eyes. “I always trust you.”

She leaned in and kissed him, wrecking him all over again.

When they pulled apart, Iris was stirring. He remembered— oh, God, what it was _like_ for this to be relevant information again— remembered how hungry Iris always was when she woke up, and how her blood sugar crashed, turning her into a volatile crankypants if they didn’t get some food in her.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll get some breakfast,” he said, when he’d recovered a handful of functioning brain cells.

It was early enough that the kitchen was empty… almost. Lucy, at the table, looked up from her coffee and gave him a sympathetic smile.

Why did he warrant sympathy? “What?” he asked, and added jokingly, “I look that bad?”

When he looked up from starting the coffee maker, she was giving him a frank look. “You look overjoyed, besotted, and terrified.”

Her words struck home, and he collapsed into a chair, his hands over his face. “Oh fuck,” he muttered.

She put her hand on his arm. “It’s gonna be okay, Flynn,” she said quietly.

He nodded mechanically.

“Don’t you dare run,” she added.

“I’d rip my own heart out first,” he managed. “It would amount to about the same thing.”

She snorted, squeezed his arm gently, and let go.

He put his hands down and studied her carefully. They’d talked about this, frankly and at length, when she first floated her idea… but that didn’t mean she mightn’t still be tender. Luckily, acting with more emotional maturity than Wyatt Logan in the same situation was only slightly more difficult than remembering to breathe.

But her gaze, meeting his squarely, was open and untroubled, and her smile was warm and sincere. Good. Lucy deserved not to be hurt any more.

His stomach rumbled, and he remembered what had brought him out there. He searched the refrigerator for something fit to offer his girls. “I’m making eggs. You want any?”

She shook her head. “I already ate, thanks.”

Eggs. He put some toast in, and found butter that didn’t look too dubious. Coffee for him and Lorena. If Iris was getting sick… he put the kettle on to make some weak, hot tea with honey as a preemptive strike.

It all felt so strange, it was almost like his time travel-induced vertigo had returned. “What was Lorena wearing when she… got here?”

“What? Why?”

“Because if you can tell me, this is much less likely to be a hallucination.”

He tried to duck Lucy’s gaze as he worked, but she got up and came over to the counter. “It’s not a hallucination, Flynn,” she said softly. “I’ll tell you that as often as you need to hear it. … and that’s the cereal cabinet.”

He swore, and rescued the butter, returning it to the fridge.

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m going to shower to beat the rush.”

When the food was done, he piled the plates and mugs on an empty monitor box leftover from setting up the new safe house, recycling services being hard to come by when you lived in a secret government facility buried in the Sierras. Then he carried everything inside.

Iris was still half-asleep. Lorena smiled up at him. “Breakfast in bed?”

“The, uh, the kitchen’s empty if you prefer that. Whatever you want.”

“This is fine. Let Miss Sleepyhead, there, wake up.”

So they sat side by side on his bed and enjoyed slightly rubbery eggs, partially burnt toast, and reasonable coffee. “Is there a plan for the day?” she asked. “I guess I don’t really know how things work here.”

He swallowed, utterly distracted by the warmth of her pressed from his shoulder all the way down to his knee. “If the, uh.” Words. He could… words. “When the jump alarm goes off, we drop everything and chase Rittenhouse through time. If that doesn’t happen… I thought we could, uh, figure out how to make you and Iris most comfortable here. Show you everything… I’m sorry. I know it’s rough here.” At least it was miles better than the bunker.

She shook her head. “We’ll sur— we’ll be fine.”

“And, uh, catch you up on the last four years,” he added.

“That’s right, it’s twenty eighteen. So strange.” She shook her head. “Who’s president now?”

He winced.

“… Garcia?”

He told her.

“… are you _fuc—_ are you serious?” she whispered.

“Unfortunately.”

“ _How?_ Are you sure this isn’t some alternate evil universe?”

“Lucy says that the 2016 election has all the hallmarks of a classic Rittenhouse intervention, but we haven’t been able to prove it. Yet. And until we have more evidence, Agent Christopher won’t authorize an intervention.” He wanted to get off this subject before she asked more details. “I thought we could clean out the storeroom next door for Iris, if she wants it.”

“She might be scared.”

“I know. I just thought we could have it ready for her when she’s ready for some space of her own.”

Plus, he had a recheck with the neurologist, but he wasn’t going to remind her of that.

“Plus you have that recheck with the neurologist.”

He looked at her.

“See?” Her smile was lopsided. “I still know you.”

He laughed. It hurt a little, but it felt good, too. “You do.” His voice came out rough. “You do.”

She ate her last bite of toast. “Right,” she said. “Okay. Team Flynns, taking on another day.”

Team Flynns. It had been four years since he’d heard her say that. God.

He clinked his mug against hers. “Team Flynns,” he agreed.


	2. Day +15

“Flynn, a word?” Agent Christopher said.

Lucy looked between the two of them, but obediently moved out of earshot.

He leaned against the counter and waited.

“Jiya and Rufus are willing to switch rooms with you and Lorena,” Agent Christopher said quietly. “If you want.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Why?”

“Their room has that storage room on one side and the old office on the other.”

“The two that are currently filled with records, dust, and a metric shit ton of silverfish?”

Her eyes glinted. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of silverfish.”

“I’m _not_ afraid.”

“I thought you could use the old office for Iris, and…” She hesitated. “I can get you a cot or maybe a futon for the storage room.”

“Why?”

She hesitated again. “When all this started, how much research did you do on Michelle and me?”

“Just enough to be reasonably sure you weren’t Rittenhouse. General background information. Your, uh, degree at Maryland, your stint on the police force, Quantico, Homeland Security. Michelle’s work at Earthjustice. Financials, looking for unusual cash flows. Basic movements and associates. You… uh, played a less prominent role in the journal timeline, apparently, and I was not sure if you would come into play here.”

Agent Christopher cocked an eyebrow at him. He stared right back. She, the only other person on this team with a background in surveillance and espionage, knew damn well the value of good intel.

“Not therapy records?”

He shook his head once. “Wyatt’s. Not yours.”

She looked satisfied. “Then you wouldn’t know that we nearly split up in 2003.”

He waited. Then: “Why?”

“Work pressure, mostly,” she said after a minute. “I was traveling a lot, and the national security environment in the country at the time— I wasn’t in a good place when I was home. We both hit sort of a midlife crisis at the same time, and Olivia was having trouble in school…”

“No, I meant, why are you telling me this?” And what did this have to do with Jiya and Rufus’s room?

She looked at him thoughtfully. “We’re good now, she and I,” she said after a minute. “But it took a lot of work to get there. And we had our privacy. I can’t imagine how hard it would’ve been to— fix things with everything out in the open.”

“Ahhh.” Enlightenment dawned. So this was about her arriving this morning, before anyone was awake, to find him sleeping on the couch… for the third day in a row. The first night he had blamed their just-concluded mission, but that excuse clearly wasn’t holding up.

“You told Rufus and Jiya all this?” He didn’t care to have his dysfunctions publicly aired, but embarrassing as it would be, he would live. But to have _Lorena_ exposed…

She shook her head. “I just said that now that Lorena and Iris are here, I thought you could use more space. And apparently that room is colder than Jiya likes, anyway.”

“I’ll talk to Lorena and see what she wants to do.” He paused. “Thank… you.”

Agent Christopher nodded, and turned to go.

“Wait,” he said. “Please.”

She turned back.

He hesitated. “I know that I have exhausted any favors I earned the right to ask of you,” he began, awkwardly. “But… I need to ask another one.”

“What is it?”

He hesitated again, and told her.

Her expression was inscrutable. She didn’t say anything. Fine; this, for ex-terrorist assets, was far from the top of the list of the priorities. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Forget I said anything.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Agent Christopher said. “I should’ve thought of it earlier, for more than just you. I _did_ think of it earlier,” she admitted, “but with everyone semi-functional, I had to tell myself it wasn’t a priority.”

“But you all are all that stands between the world and Rittenhouse. It’s in everyone’s best interests to have all of you as functional as possible. I’ll see what I can do.”

“We,” he said, as she walked away.

She stopped. “What?”

“We. Are all that stands between the world and Rittenhouse.”

After a minute, she gave him a small smile.

“… don’t tell the others it was my idea.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “How stupid do you think I am, Flynn? Please don’t answer that.”

When he had a minute alone with Lorena, he told her. “What do you think?”

She didn’t look thrilled. After a moment, she said, quietly, “I guess it’s a good idea, if… if we’re going to keep needing another bed.”

If his nightmares kept driving him out of her bed, in other words.

He loved her deeply. Yet what was he to do when he woke over and over in the night, choking on the terror of losing her and Iris all over again, or sick with the memory of the things he’d done trying to save them? What was he to do when he couldn’t even put it into words? Keep them both awake? She was patient, but this was not, it appeared, going to be a one-night thing. Having them both sleep-deprived wouldn’t help anything.

He didn’t say anything, and let that be his answer.

She looked down at him, soft and sad, and cupped his cheek in her hand. He turned his head, and kissed her palm.

“I also, ahhhhhh…” He trailed off, and licked his top lip. “I asked Agent Christopher if there was any chance of getting a…” He hesitated. “Of getting someone to… talk to… down here.”

“Someone— oh, like a therapist. Good.” She nodded, and sat down beside him. She took his hand, and kissed his knuckles.

His brain blanked out, as it did, more or less, every time she kissed any part of him. God, he just—

It was like he was living a chimerical life: on one hand, the dream he’d clung to since 2014; on the other hand, the ongoing consequences of everything he’d done to bring them back. Sometimes the whiplash and the confusion…

Well, it was hard.

“Lorena, I want you to promise me something,” he said quietly.

She met his gaze, open and not alarmed. “What?”

“That you’ll walk away if you need to.”

She just watched him.

“I want you to promise that if you realize this isn’t what you need, _I’m_ not what you need, I’m not good for you… that you’ll accept that. Find someone who can make you happier than I can.”

She looked at him, expression a little sad. “It’s adorable that you think I could. Find someone who can make me happier than you do.”

“Lorena…” This was it, the crux of it, because he didn’t think she _got_ it. “I’m just saying, if in two weeks or two months or two decades, this isn’t what you thought it was going to be… Lorena, I _love_ you. I want you to have whatever’s best, whether or not—“ His voice cracked. “It’s with me.”

After a long silence, she said, “I won’t sacrifice myself for you. Is that what you’re asking?”

He slumped in relief, and nodded.

“Garcia, I love _you_ ,” she said quietly. “I wish you could have more faith that—” She hesitated. “Is there someone else? Or was there someone else?”

“What? No.”

“Not even Lucy?” Her tone was curious, and not at all judgmental.

“No. Lucy was the one who figured out how to save you,” he added, because he owed Lucy so much, and at least he could make sure— make sure Lorena understood the truth, that she didn’t get the wrong impression of Lucy.

“I know.” She paused. “It’s just, you thought I was dead. I _was_ dead. And you didn’t…?”

“And I was _just a little_ upset about that!” He couldn’t believe he had to say that. Then he closed his eyes, and bit back on his agitation.

“Was that all?” she said after a minute. “Or was it that you didn’t think you deserved happiness?”

Christ, he’d forgotten the depths of Lorena’s perception. She knew him inside and out. He covered his face with his hand. “Both, probably.” His voice was gravelly.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

“Lorena,” he said after a minute, because, if she’d brought it up, did that mean it was on her mind? He couldn’t leave her worried, not about _that_ , not even if he thought he wasn’t good enough for her. “Lucy is indomitable, and she is wonderful. And maybe, in another timeline, with enough time… our relationship would have been something besides what it is now.”

He considered. “Or maybe not. It was complicated. I did, uh, threaten her several times. Or, I tried. I don’t know if she ever believed me.”

Lorena snorted.

He got himself back on track. “But in this timeline, it didn’t happen like that. And I don’t regret that.” He searched her face, because it would break his heart if she thought he didn’t want this, with her. “Lorena, all my doubts, they’re about _me_. They’re not about you.”

She paused. “Did you just say it’s not you, it’s me?”

He snorted. “Well, you know I’ve always been a, uh, smooth talker.”

She started laughing, and ended up doubled over, arms wrapped around herself. He smiled at the sight of her so thoroughly amused.

She managed to pull herself together, and straightened up. “Garcia, I love you,” she said softly, those worry lines between her eyebrows smoothed out, for the moment.

He smiled at her helplessly, because… because Lorena. Then he leaned forward and kissed her, slow and thorough, because she was _here_ and he _could_.

She brought both hands up to the back of his head, sliding her fingers through his hair, and nipped at his bottom lip, just enough to make his breath stutter. Then she slowly, gently licked her way into his mouth, until both of them were breathing not quite evenly.

She filled his senses. He was overwhelmed.

She pulled back and gave him a considering look. “So you haven’t…?”

He took a deep breath, and tried to remember how words worked. “No.” It killed him to add this next bit, but he had to: “And I don’t… think I’m there. Yet.” Though after a kiss like that he was so, so tempted to throw caution, vulnerability, sensible thinking to the wind…

“I know,” she assured him. “I know you, I can tell you’re holding yourself together with baling wire and toothpicks right now. I wasn’t actually going to suggest it.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Yet.”

His brain restarted itself. Again.

She hesitated. “What you asked earlier… Garcia, I’ll…” She swallowed. “I will not sacrifice my needs for what I think you want,” she said finally. “I think that’s what you’re asking.”

He nodded once.

“But in return, I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I want you to listen very carefully.” She leaned forward and took his chin in her hand. “ _You are enough_ ,” she said gently.

He closed his eyes against the sudden prickle as he inhaled sharply. “Lorena,” he whispered, and reached for her blindly, pulling her against his chest, too close even to kiss.

So he spent the next day cleaning out the storage closet and office on either side of Jiya and Rufus’s room, hauling boxes and papers until he couldn’t see from sneezing and his shirt was plastered to him with sweat. They let the dust settle for the night, and then made the switch the next day. Iris was delighted with her new “room”; Agent Christopher quietly found them a futon for what Lorena jokingly referred to as their “sitting room.”

He woke again that night, shaking. He’d dreamt— the Hindenburg— he’d seen Lorena and Iris onboard after planting the bomb, and he hadn’t— his feet had frozen to the ground, keeping him from—

“Garcia?” she murmured sleepily.

It was too much, too much, and he wouldn’t let the memory of that horror taint having her here with him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, stroked her cheek with trembling fingers, and swung his legs out of bed to pad into the little room. He left the door cracked, in case… in case, and stretched out on the futon, feeling like a miserable idiot as he listened to Lorena’s slow breathing from the next room.

That helped, oddly enough. He was far enough away not to be overwhelmed by the visceral horror of the dream, but close enough to hear her, know that she was alive. He fell asleep again, and when he woke, sometime before dawn, he hesitated, then slipped back into her bed.

He didn’t sleep again. But when she stirred not too long after, she made a pleased, surprised, sleepy noise. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You came back.”

“Mm-hmm.” He kissed her temple.

She reached up and stroked his face. “Your scruff is still as lovely as ever.”

“Oh?” He turned his head, very gently scraping his stubble across her palm. “Really.”

“Well.” She rubbed her thumb across his cheek. “I guess I’d better take a more representative sampling before I can be sure.” She kissed the very corner of his mouth, then trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses down his jaw. “Oh, yeah,” she murmured. “Wait, I’d better…” She started again on the other side.

“ _Lorena_ ,” he whispered, tilting his head back, closing his eyes.

“Oh, love.” Her voice was soft. She wiped his face. “I wasn’t trying to make you cry.”

“Please,” he begged. “Yes.”

He shook under her gentle hands, not even trying to hold back the tears, as her achingly tender ministrations both stung and healed all the hardened wounds his heart had amassed since the night of August 27th, 2014.

They ended up face-to-face on their sides, kissing slowly and lazily over and over, all wandering hands and gentle lips. That went on for a while, until he had no words left, until all he could think of was the smell of her hair, the feel of her body once again under his hands, the taste of her, her soft, low sighs of pleasure.

He was the one to pull back. He was certain that if they went much further, if they did anything to turn those soft, low sighs into the throaty moans he remembered, he would start crying again, and she deserved much better than that.

She nestled happily into his arms, and they stayed like that until they heard Iris stirring.

The day after that, he commandeered the kitchen early in the morning. Mason came out for coffee; Garcia gave him a warning look. “Don’t disturb this,” he growled.

Mason’s eyes widened. He took his coffee and left. Garcia watched the oven, took the contents out, transferred them to Tupperware, and waited.

Finally Jiya and Rufus’s door opened. Rufus shuffled out, yawning. Garcia handed him the container, and turned to go.

“What?” Rufus said.

“What?” Jiya said behind him.

“Flynn just… handed me a thing of, um, scones. Warm… scones.”

Garcia sighed. Apparently, geniuses though they were, they needed him to spell it out for them. “Thanks for switching rooms,” he said.

“Ohhhhh,” Rufus said. “I get it, you’re trying to do a normal person thing.”

Garcia rolled his eyes, and went to get coffee for Lorena.

She’d seen the whole thing from the doorway to their new room, apparently, watching with sleepy-eyed amusement. “I see you haven’t lost your way with words.”

He smiled a little helplessly, and handed her the mug. “Breakfast for you and Iris?”

“Oh, I was thinking eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, maybe some, mm, guava and papaya, some freshly squeezed orange juice, and, uh, some homemade croissants.”

“I can do scrambled eggs, toast, and apple slices.”

“Done.” She followed him back to the kitchen, and washed the apples as he got out everything else. “I’ll do the to— oh,” she said, discovering he’d already started it.

“You could sit on the counter and keep me company.”

“Is that all you think I’m good for?” Her mouth twitched.

“You could, uh, butter the toast…?”

“I’m feeling under-used, Garcia,” she commented.

He kissed her hair. “If I make you your own batch of scones, will you stop poking holes in my appreciation of you?”

She looked up at him. “Maybe that was my goal all along.”

He snorted as she smirked at him.

All his darker impulses told him to back away. To run away. That he’d hurt her, hurt Iris, if he stayed. That he didn’t belong here, with her, after all that he’d done, after four years apart. _Go. Go. Just GO._

But… Lorena thought that was bullshit. Maybe she didn’t know exactly what he’d done, but she knew _him_. She’d always been able to read him incredibly well… and she was still here.

Lucy thought it was bullshit, too. She _did_ know what he’d done. The two people who knew him better than anyone else on this earth, the two women he loved most dearly, each in their own way. They’d both been right about him on more than one occasion, when he himself was wrong.

It would be hard. One day at a time of trying to find enough worthwhile left in himself to share with Lorena, with Iris. One night at a time of listening to Lorena’s gentle breathing in the next room, and putting himself back together enough to join her in bed for a few more hours.

It would be hard. But maybe he should believe Lorena, and Lucy too, that…

That it was _possible_.

He looked at Lorena. It was a damned _miracle_ that she was here, and he could not, would not, squander that.

“I would like nothing more,” he told her seriously.


	3. Day +23

For once, Lorena woke first. She spent a few minutes enjoying the warmth of Garcia’s body, his deep, slow, even breathing. She would’ve happily stayed there until he woke up— would’ve preferred he not wake alone, in fact— but she needed the bathroom. More importantly, Garcia was almost supernaturally sensitive to Iris’s voice, and would wake from a dead sleep if he heard her. If Lorena fixed breakfast first, maybe Garcia would sleep a while longer. She hoped he did. He’d gotten back to sleep eventually, but he’d not slept the night through. His nightmares were unrelenting bastards.

 _We had to get the one kid who doesn’t like packaged cereal_ , Lorena thought wryly. But soon enough Iris would be old enough to fix her own breakfast, and Lorena knew she would miss their family breakfasts dearly.

She looked at Garcia’s face, for once relaxed and peaceful. God, she _loved_ him. She knew he thought she shouldn’t, after what he’d done. Was it a sin? To love him, even knowing everything? 

No; no, love was never a sin. Love was God’s most powerful medicine.

Either way, it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t a _choice_ she’d made. Love wasn’t something you could turn off and on based on a moral argument. 

Maybe… if what he’d done had been presented to her as the actions of a complete stranger to trick her into disgust before she learned the truth, she might have felt differently. Maybe if she hadn’t seen him first, talked to him, seen him nearly die saving her and Iris. Maybe if the context for all this hadn’t been _you needed to come four years forward in the future or you both would have died horribly._ Maybe if the bunker full of time-traveling fighters hadn’t shown so clearly that he’d been _right_ about the threat of Rittenhouse.

She didn’t like what he’d done. She hated it. But she also understood it.

 _God, don’t take him from me. Please. Let him stay. Let us make it_. Just the thought of life without him left her with a hollow ache in her ribs.

He kept telling her she didn’t truly know what he’d done. But she knew the facts, she knew the man he’d been before, and she knew the man he was now. She could draw a line connecting two points. She could guess what things must have been like, to give him this darker edge.

She very carefully sat up, then stood. Garcia still didn’t stir. Well, days of nightmare-induced sleep deprivation, topped with a healthy dose of endorphins, would do that to you. She hoped he’d sleep a while longer. 

She listened carefully at Iris’s door, but heard nothing. All this— coming to a secret bunker in the future because a sinister shadowy organization wanted to kill her, knowing that they could _change time_ — had made her a lot more worried. On edge.

Then she stopped at the bathroom and made her way to the kitchen. But it wasn’t unoccupied like she’d expected.

Lucy gave her a quick smile. “I can get out of your way.” She started to gather up her books and papers.

Lorena looked at her blankly. “You’re not _in_ my way. I’m just here to make Iris some breakfast.”

She measured oats and water into a pot and turned it on to boil. Then she put the kettle on the other burner.

“Oatmeal?” she asked Lucy, who had, gratifyingly, stayed in her seat after all. “Tea?” Lucy had a mug by her elbow, but if there was liquid left in it, Lorena couldn’t see it. The coffee maker was cold, and Lucy herself had an air of having been here for a while.

Lucy hesitated. “I’d enjoy tea. Thank you.”

Lorena poured two cups while the oatmeal cooked, and started the tea steeping. By the time she’d chopped an apple, thrown it into the oatmeal, and taken the pot off the heat, it was time to scoop the tea bags out. She carried both mugs to the table, and got the milk from the fridge.

“Wow,” Lucy said with a crooked smile. “Fancy.”

Lorena gestured. “The ambiance here demands nothing less.”

Lucy laughed, just a quiet huff, and looked surprised to be doing it. “Well, thank you.” She poured just a splash of milk into her tea.

For a moment, they drank in silence.

“How are you doing?” Lucy asked.

Lorena could see why Garcia clearly loved Lucy, even if his feelings weren’t romantic. It was a common-place question, yet Lorena could tell that Lucy, though clearly quite tired, was genuinely interested in the answer.

Lorena knew it wasn’t romantic between the two of them, because Garcia didn’t lie to her, either in word or deed. But… because he didn’t lie to her, she also knew that, in another universe, it could very well have been. Maybe _had_ been. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the implications of time travel.

“Sometimes it’s rough.” Lorena’s own honesty surprised her, though perhaps it should not have. Something about Lucy clearly inspired confidences. “The upheaval of leaving everything we knew, and coming four years into the future?”

 _Everything_ , except each other. Lorena’s job; all her friends; all Iris’s friends. Mom and Dad, Sophie and Joseph and the kids… they’d all spent the last four years thinking Lorena and Iris were dead and Garcia was the worst kind of violent criminal. Legally speaking, neither Lorena and Iris even existed.

“But given the alternative, I’m not complaining,” she added, smiling wryly.

Lucy watched her thoughtfully. “You’re allowed to. Complain.”

Lorena found herself startled for the second time in two minutes. 

“You know, I used to tell myself, ‘it could always be worse,’” Lucy said. “I’d… put my head down, and try to soldier through. But fighting Rittenhouse has shown me just what a low bar _it could always be worse_ is. So… I’ve learned it helps to talk about it.” She shrugged, her self-deprecation at odds with her self-assurance of just a moment before. “If you ever need someone to listen.”

“Thank you,” Lorena said, slow, but sincere. There were some things she _didn’t_ want to share with Garcia. She wasn’t sure she would share them with Lucy. But for Lucy to be perceptive enough to offer her that option…

Yes. Lorena saw why Garcia loved this woman.

She nodded at Lucy’s books and papers. “Can I ask what you’re doing?”

That soft, generous perceptiveness hardened into something dark. “Trying to track Rittenhouse through time.”

“How?”

“Well, I started by assuming they’re behind the worst of history’s atrocities. Based on something Flynn once said. And I tried to find connections between them. Looking for anything that could help us fight them.” She shook her head. “It’s honestly not going very well.”

Lorena eyed her. It sounded like a very nebulous task. Not the kind of thing that would, by itself, pull you out of bed at, what, five in the morning. Not unless there was a corresponding push.

“Do you want help? Another set of eyes?” Sometimes, especially when Garcia was gone on a mission— there’d been three, so far— she had little to do. Some parents could make their children their entire life, but Lorena had never been one of them.

“I don’t think it’s at that stage yet, but if it gets there, I’ll tell you.”

Lorena read between the lines: this was something Lucy did to vent— anger, depression, frustration, maybe. 

She was still learning the background of everyone in the group. Lucy had been the one to tell her a lot of that, in those very first hours when Garcia had still been unconscious, which had let Lucy conveniently omit details about herself. But whatever Lucy was struggling with— in general and this morning— Lorena was touched she’d taken the time to listen.

She heard snuffling from Iris’s little bedroom, the first sign that she was waking up. Lorena put the kettle back on. Garcia had subsisted on coffee for decades as a soldier, but, when there was time for the attention to detail that good tea required, he preferred that.

Sure enough, Garcia came out of their bedroom, rumpled and sleepy-eyed, just as Lorena heard Iris start talking to Grumbly Bear. Lorena intercepted him and handed him a mug of tea— splash of milk, pinch of sugar— and a bowl of peanut butter apple oatmeal. 

His fingers brushed hers and lingered as he took the mug. His eyes were soft and rueful and fond. He looked—

Well, scruffy and beautiful, but _that_ wasn’t new. He looked well-rested. Less haunted.

The trajectory was promising.

“Morning,” he murmured, and the look in his eyes told her exactly how much it meant to him to be able to say that again.

“Good morning,” she whispered. Conscious of Lucy behind them, she didn’t add, _Sleep well?_ But the thought made her smirk, and Garcia gave her a thoughtful look, lips twitching.

 _God_ , she loved him.

“I’ll be in in a minute with yours and mine,” she added, glancing at the bowl.

“Right. Thank you.”

Lorena took a minute to clean up after herself, conscious that they were sharing a bunker with six other people. “Sure you don’t want some?” she asked Lucy. “There’s extra.”

Lucy shook her head. “Thanks, but I lived off oatmeal in grad school, and…”

“Got it.” So she put the leftovers in a container for tomorrow.

She’d just finished cleaning the pot when she heard Iris’s raised voice. Lorena couldn’t make out what Iris was upset about, and Garcia’s reply was just a low rumble. She put the pot in the drainer—

“I want to go home! Why’d you make us come here! I hate you!”

Parenting gave you teleportation powers. Lorena used hers to get to Iris’s bedroom faster than the speed of light.

Garcia looked like someone who’d just taken a mortal blow. Lorena knew if he’d been alone he would have managed, buried his own feelings— but he wasn’t alone.

“Iris,” Lorena said, squatting in front of her daughter, who was sitting up in her cot, “do you think that’s a nice thing to say to Daddy?”

Iris pouted, defiant. And Garcia—

Garcia was gone.

She looked after him, feeling stricken, herself. Iris promptly burst into tears. “Where’d he go?”

Shit. She couldn’t leave Iris like this, but—

She saw Lucy look after Garcia, too, and get up and follow him. She felt a twinge of regret, but mostly, relief.

She got Iris calmed down and got some food in her, suspecting that none of this would have happened after breakfast. Then she gently explained that sometimes, when you said mean things to people, they got upset and left.

“But I didn’t _mean_ to!”

“I know, koala bear, but you did.”

“Is he coming _back?_ ”

“Yes, baby, he’s coming back—”

Iris bounced off the cot and trotted out the door. Lorena followed fast, because if Garcia wasn’t ready to— if he needed more space—

Lucy and Garcia were sitting at the end of the big room. Lucy was speaking softly, her expression firm and intent. Garcia’s head was down, staring at his hands, but he didn’t look as bad as Lorena had feared. 

Iris bounded across the room. “Daddy, I’m _sorry_.”

Garcia looked up fast, and his face nearly broke Lorena’s heart. God, some days lately she felt like she was running around with packing tape and a hot glue gun, and she didn’t know who to help first. The list of choices included herself.

Garcia scooped Iris up and sat her on his lap. Lucy made herself scarce, and returned to the table. Lorena joined her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, still watching Garcia and Iris. Whatever Garcia was saying had Iris nodding.

“Of course.” Lucy began to gather her papers and books.

Lorena looked at her. “… can I ask you something?”

Lucy nodded, looking a little puzzled.

Lorena hesitated. “You said it helps to talk.”

Lucy nodded again.

“Who do _you_ talk to?”

Lucy paused, mouth open, and Lorena knew. “It’s Garcia, isn’t it.”

Lucy closed her mouth, her surprise vanishing behind a mask. “It was, yes.”

Lorena thought through all the ramifications of that, considered the best way to—

Hell, a better person would’ve known the best way to handle this, but sometimes she just had to be blunt. “Did you put that in the past tense because you think I’d object?”

Or was it painful for Lucy to be around Garcia right now?

Lorena knew what Garcia’s feelings for Lucy were. What about Lucy’s feelings for Garcia?

Lucy looked startled. Lorena felt a brief flash of satisfaction at having taken such a perceptive woman by surprise. Then she hoped she hadn’t offended Lucy, hadn’t added to her burdens. She suspected that the other woman could close herself off quite effectively when she wanted to.

Lucy looked her dead in the eyes, and Lorena suspected she was about to get _something_ at full force. “The last thing I _ever_ wanted is to be seen as the ‘other woman,’” Lucy said bluntly. “To come between a couple who love each other?” She shook her head. “I spent the first thirty-three years of my life thinking my biological father was my mother’s husband—”

Lorena felt like she was doing eighty down the highway, trying to dodge chunks of tire flying at her at speed. She went with the first thing that came to mind: “That must be hard. I’m sorry.”

Lucy again looked startled, and her expression softened.

Lorena just went for it. “Lucy, my love for Garcia would have to be something very shallow and petty indeed if it made me want him to step away from his friends.”

Lucy snorted. “You have no idea how refreshing that is to hear.”

Lorena eyed her, her sense that Lucy was dealing with undisclosed burdens only growing. “Please. Don’t keep away from him on my account.”

Lorena trusted Garcia. And she trusted Lucy.

And, honestly? If Garcia couldn’t be happy with Lorena?

She loved him. She wanted… him to be happy.

Ideally, with _her_. But he was afraid he couldn’t be enough for her any more… and occasionally, she was afraid she wasn’t the right one for him.

Lucy gave her a thoughtful, penetrating look. “Thank you for saying that,” she said quietly.

“Thank you for being there for him this last year.”

“I didn’t always do a very good job.”

“Yeah, well, from what I hear, you did have one or two other things on your plate.” She hesitated. “Besides, I love Garcia, but…” She chose her words carefully. “I can see how he might have made it difficult for you.”

She got the _distinct_ impression Lucy was preserving a tactful silence. That was all right. Lorena was well aware Garcia’s emotional intelligence was bimodally distributed. Sometimes, _usually_ , he was a wonderfully sensitive, thoughtful, deeply caring person. And then occasionally he… just…

Tried to activate his gag reflex with his big toe.

“I was glad to,” Lucy said. “He’s been… a good friend to me.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” And Lorena was. In particular, she was glad Lucy would _say_ it to her.

Lucy glanced towards the bathrooms. “I think I’m going to shower before the morning rush.”

“Right. Thanks… thanks again.”

“Hey?”

Lorena looked at her.

“I meant what I said,” Lucy said quietly. “If you ever need to talk.” She gave Lorena a searching look. “You know, put your own oxygen mask on first?”

Lorena accidentally channeled a bit of Garcia’s tactlessness: “Is that… a concept you actually have any personal experience with at all?”

Lucy opened her mouth, then closed it again. Lorena again felt the pleasure of catching such a formidable woman flat-footed, but she felt much more strongly the knowledge that that had not been one of her better moments. “Sorry,” she added. “Wow, that was really rude.”

“I’m… working on it. But the point stands,” Lucy said firmly.

Despite everything, Lorena laughed. She was glad Garcia had a friend of Lucy’s caliber… and she was glad to have met Lucy for her own sake, too.

“I’ll remember,” she said, and found that she meant it. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd say this was by popular demand, but I had this one in mind for a while.


	4. Day +32

Lorena was a big fan of the public school system. She knew she didn’t have the wherewithal to teach Iris all the things she needed in life. Sure, Lorena could show her how to tie her shoes, ride a bicycle, write a for loop, and say no. But when it came to academics? Lorena preferred to leave that to the professionals.

So, naturally, now they were all living in a secret off-grid bunker, and Lorena was sitting at the table trying to teach her daughter about the past tense.

Iris twisted to look around for the third time in two minutes. Clearly this material wasn’t any more engaging for her than it was for Lorena. “Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s in our bedroom.”

“I wanna go see him!”

“I know, sweetie, but he’s talking to the doctor. We’re giving him his privacy.” Garcia was holed up in the little room with the futon, Skyping with the high security clearance therapist Agent Christopher had found for him and for the rest of the team.

Lorena was trying not to watch the clock, and hoping it was going well for him. He needed more help, _different_ help, than she could give him. She clung to the knowledge that these sessions were helping him. But she knew— it might not be enough. It might be enough for _him_ but not for _them_.

As long as he was okay, she could take anything else. But, God, she didn’t want to lose him.

“Mommy?”

Iris’s voice brought her back to the present and the knowledge of her delinquency as a teacher. “Yes, honey.”

“This is boring.”

“I know it is, but you need to understand how people talk to each other. You don’t want to end up as an engineer, do you?”

“Hey,” Rufus protested from where he was working at the kitchen counter. “That is a _slander_. And it’s only, like… eighty percent true.”

“Slander is by definition untrue,” Lorena pointed out. “Ergo, it’s not slander.”

“Hey, don’t get all your messy facts in my argument, man.”

Lorena dimpled. “‘Words, words, words,’” she murmured.

“What?” Rufus glanced up again. “Are you, like, a lawyer?”

She’d been there four and a half weeks. But looking after Iris with Garcia, and trying to look after Garcia himself, when he let her, took most of her time. Between that, and the team having been gone for days on four missions, she hadn’t gotten to know everyone well yet. She’d only talked to… Wyatt? Or had it been Lucy? about what she did. Well. What she’d used to do.

“I’m a programmer,” she said.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Uh, that would be a strange thing for me to lie about.”

“Yeah, but I expect strange things from people named Flynn. Force of habit.”

Lorena snorted.

“Jiya and I could… really use some help, actually,” Rufus added. “If you want to.”

She frowned. “I thought the Lifeboat was running well.”

“Yeah, but it’s held together with baling wire and gum. We try to be proactive. Plus, we’re looking for the Mothership. And trying to figure out what else Rittenhouse might have changed in history.”

He looked so quietly hopeful. He looked so _tired_. Lorena glanced down at her daughter. “Are you okay here for a few minutes if I go look at what Rufus has to show me?”

Iris nodded.

“Are you gonna work on your exercises?”

Iris nodded again, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sure. But Lorena picked the battle she was more likely to win, and followed Rufus anyway.

“So, here’s the program that runs Lifeboat diagnostics.” Rufus turned a monitor so she could see. “Except it was cobbled together by three different programmers over five years, so, honestly, we usually run a lot of it manually. And it’s a pain in the ass and we’re trying to fix it.”

“Rufus, I don’t… know this language.” She scanned the lines of code anyway, automatically assessing it.

His face fell. He’d looked so excited at the prospect of having someone to help— like Christmas had come early.

“I mean, I can look it over,” she added. “I can recognize a function, anyway. I can, you know, write a game plan for refactoring.”

Rufus’s face lit up. “Yes!”

Scrolling through the unfamiliar code was like trying to wrestle an alligator: slippery, and if she got it wrong, it would bite her in the ass. The task pulled her under; she glanced at the clock—

_What?_ She sat up and rubbed her hands over her eyes. Forty minutes had passed in what felt like ten. Iris was still bent assiduously over her work…

Or over something, anyway. Lorena stood and stretched, blinking as her eyes burned. She looked over Iris’s shoulder. “Nice doodles.”

“I finished _all_ the sentences,” Iris said petulantly.

“Good job, kiddo.” She ruffled Iris’s hair. “I’m going to go check on your dad.”

Garcia’s therapy session should have been done twenty-five minutes ago… and he was still in there. If they were still talking, or if he just needed space, she’d turn right around again, but if…

He was asleep on the futon, the laptop closed beside him. She started to back silently out of the room, but of course he didn’t sleep through the door opening.

“Sorry, babe,” she said sheepishly, as he blinked sleepily up at her. He needed the sleep; his nightmares had woken him for the past five nights he’d spent in the 21st century.

“’s okay.” He yawned. He didn’t do anything as obvious as pat the bed beside him, but he looked up at her hopefully.

She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Did it go okay?” She saw traces of tears on his cheeks, and ached to think he might have cried himself to sleep. But he looked peaceful, now.

He nodded once. “It helped.” His voice was rough with sleep. “How’s it going out there?” he added.

She gently stroked his hair. “Well, I think we’ve established I’ll never be an English teacher.”

He smirked, and shifted back from the edge of the bed, making room for her. She didn’t fight temptation, just lay down beside him and nestled against his arm. She definitely wasn’t going to pass up the chance for unexpected midday snuggles with her husband. Or morning snuggles. Or midnight snuggles. Or any snuggles.

She gently wiped the lingering moisture from his face with her thumb, and studied his expression. Something told her that that sadness, that darkness, might never be wholly gone. But the shame, the guilt… for today, those lurked out of sight.

She kissed him. He cupped her head and returned her kiss, slow and thoughtful and gentle, like she was home and respite. That was like balm on the burn of the nameless fears she harbored about their future. At least for a few minutes.

The feel of his tongue against hers reminded her that they’d slept next to each other more or less chastely for the last four and a half weeks… when he hadn’t been suffering from his nightmares, or chasing Rittenhouse. Increasingly— increasing at a frustratingly _slow_ pace— it was less chastely. But now was not the time or the place to change that.

“I guess I should get back to Iris and the past tense,” she sighed, leaning against his shoulder just one moment longer.

“Mmm. I’ll try, I might have better luck.”

“You think?”

“To you, it’s always been instinctive. I’ve had to… think about it, work at it to get it right.”

“All right. I’ll let you take over, Mister Six Languages.” She raised her eyebrows. “Unless you added a few more in the last four years?”

Besides the language of grief, and sadness, which he now understood with native proficiency.

He snorted. “No,” he assured her. Then he looked down, his tongue brushing his top lip.

“What is it?”

He hesitated. “I never imagined this,” he said finally. “When I was fighting. Never pictured us… planning our daughter’s grammar education, of all things.”

He didn’t have to tell her that he _couldn’t_ have imagined it, that it would have hurt too much.

She cupped his face. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch as if it were second nature to him. “Welcome home, darling,” she whispered.

His eyes flew open. He stared at her, searching her expression for— what, she didn’t know. Finally, he nodded once, squeezed his suspiciously shiny eyes shut, and swallowed hard. She smiled a little sadly, and kissed the tip of his nose.

He smiled, too, and there was nothing sad about it.

“If I leave, could you sleep again?”

He shook his head. Not surprising. As a soldier, he’d learned to sleep anywhere and everywhere, but… lately, it seemed, his dreams and memories had taken precedence. That he’d fallen asleep at all told her how intense his session must have been, what strength of emotional release it must have brought him.

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t be.” He opened his eyes, sat up, and offered her a hand up. “Wasn’t Rufus just, uh, extolling the virtues of power napping the other day?”

Lorena snorted. Sometimes, Garcia’s teammates, though most of them were less than a decade younger than her, made her feel very old.

“I’m glad the session helped,” she said, getting to her feet.

“You help, too,” he said quietly.

She looked up at him.

“Ah. I don’t, ah, mean that to pressure you, I just… wanted you to know.”

“I know our marriage vows didn’t _specifically_ say anything about time-traveling psychopaths,” she said after a minute. “But I’m pretty sure they were included anyway…” She trailed off, because she didn’t mean to pressure _him_ , either.

The uncertainty was so hard. It terrified her to think that their marriage could fall apart in slow motion, before her eyes, despite everything they both were doing to save it. It was like waiting for a prognosis.

She wanted to think that if he had survived losing her and Iris, he could, they both could, get through the work of repairing their marriage. But she knew it didn’t work like that.

“If Rittenhouse doesn’t jump tonight, after Iris goes to sleep… do you wanna watch something?” he asked, bringing her attention back to the present. “In bed with the laptop? A… movie?”

He said that last word like the thought of doing something so pedestrian was a foreign concept to him. But the idea of cuddling together under the blankets, watching something that took no toll on their emotions, was very, very appealing. “Do you remember how we used to watch British baking shows?” she asked, a little hesitant.

A warm, soft smile spread slowly across his face. “I do.”

“I’ll make the tea if you find the episodes.”

He stepped forward and brushed his thumb across her cheek. “It’s a date, dearest,” he murmured.

#

Garcia looked down at Lorena, asleep against his shoulder, smiled, and closed the laptop.

He tucked the blanket around her, then scooted towards the edge of the bed and gently eased her down on the mattress. “Mmm?” she murmured sleepily.

“I’ll come to bed in a few minutes,” he promised softly.

He put the laptop away and slipped into the next room to check on Iris. He knelt, and gently tucked Grumbly Bear back into her little arms, then pulled the blankets up over them both. Iris was snuffling again. It would probably be cold tissues and weak tea in the morning.

He stayed there a moment, just staring at her in abject gratitude. His little koala bear. His _daughter_. Alive.

_Alive_.

His throat tightened, and he wiped his eyes before he went into the main room.

Wyatt was sprawled in the loveseat with headphones on, watching what looked like a military documentary, his body language that of a man seeking refuge with his demons. Garcia didn’t disturb him. He checked the door that led, eventually, outside; checked the surveillance cameras, and skipped quickly through the last few hours of footage; and checked for anything that just felt _off_.

There was nothing. There’d been nothing That Night, either.

But he’d been given a miracle, through the grace of God and of the arguably more formidable Lucy Preston. He would not let this terror sap him of the— the _joy_ : of teaching Iris to tie her shoes, of laughing over an hour of fallen soufflés with Lorena, of making breakfast for them both. He wouldn’t let the memory of their ghosts rob him of the reality of their lives.

He might want to watch all night, every night, but he’d promised Lorena. So he headed for their bedroom to crawl in beside her, and take what sleep he could.


	5. Day +44

Lorena quietly closed the door behind her, grateful for the privacy. 

Everyone else was in the main room. Rufus and Jiya were working on the Lifeboat; Agent Christopher and Connor were disagreeing about something; Lucy, somehow able to concentrate in the eye of the storm, was going through history books; and Garcia was helping her, while also watching Iris, who was drawing with Wyatt, like a hawk. Wyatt had surprising artistic talents, apparently, and was endearingly willing to help entertain Iris with them.

And they were all just… too much for her right now.

She’d been helping Rufus and Jiya with the diagnostics, but she’d hit a deeply frustrating wall. And her head hurt, and her uterus hurt, and the difficulty she was having just brought back all her old doubts and feelings of inadequacy about having stayed home with Iris and made her worry she’d lost all her skills, and… and, and, and.

Lorena pulled her shoes off, fell face forward onto the bed, and stopped trying to hold back tears. She buried her face in the pillow so at least she would be quiet.

She’d grabbed a tissue and half-heartedly wiped off her face when the door opened again. Garcia didn’t look surprised to see her, or her tears.

“Iris—” She started to sit up.

“Lucy’s watching her. Teaching her a, ah, song about the first ladies, apparently.” He sat down at the very end of their bed. “You gonna be all right?”

She nodded.

He patted his leg. She stretched her feet out into his lap. He took her right foot in both hands, and began to rub slow, firm circles across the top.

“Anything you wanna talk about?” he asked gently.

“Just the usual,” she muttered, as she began to sink more deeply into the mattress. “I hate this. I’m a sensible woman, but every month, these damned mood swings…”

More than twenty years, and she still wasn’t used to her body going a little haywire at the start of her period. It had gotten better in her late twenties and early thirties, only to hit _hard_ when her period came back after Iris’s birth.

“Menopause can’t come fast enough,” she grumbled. “And yeah, I know saying that’s gonna bite me in the butt.”

He worked his thumbs from her ankle to her toes and back. Then he started on her sole, pressing hard enough not to tickle, and the tension in her leg began to ease.

“Mmm,” she sighed gratefully, as his fingers methodically worked the last of the tightness out of that foot and ankle. _Oh_ , that was good.

He gently tucked that foot under the blanket and turned his attention to the other. “Sometimes you know what triggered it.”

He was too damn perceptive… except she wouldn’t have him any other way. She looked at him. Maybe she shouldn’t… maybe she just shouldn’t say anything.

Or, maybe she shouldn’t be a massive hypocrite.

She took a deep breath. “It’s hard here.”

He winced, but his fingers didn’t falter. “I know.”

He got to leave, at least. She felt terrible even thinking it; she wouldn’t say it. She’d seen the condition the team came back in. As long as he came back to her, what right did she have to complain?

_You’re allowed to. Complain_ , said a voice that sounded remarkably like Lucy Preston.

“I remember from prison, the feeling of being cooped up,” he said. “I’m… sorry.”

“God, Garcia, don’t apologize.” He’d saved their _lives_.

“Do you want solutions, or venting?”

“Venting, for now.”

“All right.”

She hesitated. 

“You think you’re the only person in this marriage who can carry the other’s burdens?” he asked softly.

“I… I’m so _grateful_ Iris is—” Her throat tightened and her stomach roiled at the thought of her five-year-old child dying in a pool of blood. Oh God. _Grateful_ did not begin to touch it; words were wholly inadequate.

Garcia squeezed her ankle.

It felt so petty to say this next bit, but it had been simmering, and it threatened to fester. “But I miss my old life, too,” she whispered.

Their friends. Her _family_. Her job, their house— even stupid little things like the squeaky coffee maker.

“It’s not that I want to go home, because home is where Iris and you are. But I miss— what’s familiar. I’m sorry. It sounds so trivial when I say it out loud,” she added.

“I won’t apologize for dragging you here if you don’t apologize for perfectly normal feelings.” He searched her face. “Unless you _want_ me to apologize for dragging you here—”

“No. God, no!” She tried to smile. “You have a deal.”

He worked his way up to her calf with the thoughtful concentration of a man enjoying his task. “I wasn’t trying to get you to stop talking,” he said after a minute.

But she found that her litany of complaints had shrunk and softened in the telling, like a properly cleaned and dressed wound going from sharp pain to dull throb. _Sorrow shared is halved; joy shared is doubled_. The truth of that depended on who you shared it with. But she’d known she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Garcia when it was consistently true with him.

“Wanna swing around?” he murmured.

She did so, and rested her head against his warm, solid thigh. When her body ached and bled, sometimes she wanted to think of it as bad and disobedient and an enemy. A scapegoat, not part of her. But his gentle, patient ministrations helped anchor her back in her own body in the best way. _Nope, still good_ , his fingers seemed to say, as they helped ease the tension out of her. _This part. This part, too. All of it_ —

“ _Oh_ ,” she whimpered in relief, as his clever fingers started on her scalp. “Mmm. Garcia.”

She _knew_ she should take more breaks when she was working. But she loved programming, and when she was helping Jiya and Rufus, it took on the urgency of fighting Rittenhouse in the only way she could. Plus, she was working in a fascinating new field. So she let herself get wound tighter and tighter, until—

He made a low, warm, pleased noise. “I thought I’d never get to do this for you again,” he murmured.

And that he was clearly getting as much out of this as she was— that was just icing on the cake. “ _Garcia_ ,” she sighed.

She sank more heavily against the mattress. Her eyes wanted to drift closed, but that little smile of his was worth keeping them open, for.

“I think I can stand everything else if I can only talk to my parents,” she said, when she could once again form words. “The thought of— of something— happening to them, while they think I’m dead…”

It was one of her more frequent night terrors.

“Do you want me to talk to Agent Christopher?” he asked. “Or do you want me to come with you when you do?”

“Mmm.” She thought about this. “I think during one of the missions would be the right psychological moment.”

He snorted, and ran both of his big hands down her arm to take her hand. “All right.”

He started rubbing her hand. _Ah_ — He’d done this before, many times, but each time she still… 

“You’re good to me,” she said, with a laugh and a sigh.

He looked at her blankly. “You’re my _wife_ ,” he said, as if that was the end of the story, book, and series.

God, she loved him.

“It is not just for the excellent quality of your foot rubs that I love you,” she assured him.

“Of course not.” He brought her hand to his lips, and gently kissed her fingers. “You have to include my scalp rubs.”

She laughed.

“What can I do?” he asked after another moment.

He asked that? While he was in the middle of reducing her to the consistency of melted butter?

But they both knew this wasn’t a long-term fix, didn’t they. “Would you just… hold me?” she whispered. 

“Of course, Princess,” he told her gravely.

She rolled her eyes at him as he helped her sit up. Then she leaned against his chest as he wrapped his long arms around her, resting his head against hers. Since almost the day they’d met, his arms had been her sanctuary. That, at least, had not changed.

He cradled her head with one big hand, thumb stroking her neck, and rubbed gently up and down her back with the other. His teammates had once thought him a monster, and she understood why. But all she saw was the damage her gentle, loving husband had done to himself by pretending to be one when he believed that was what the world needed.

She held him tighter.

“Mmm,” she said softly after a few minutes. “That was exactly what I needed.” He knew by now that her period made her feel alienated from her own body, and that while she still loved tactile comfort, it had to be a little different.

“Well, the dispensary’s open any time,” he told her.

God, she just— he was _such a dork_. And he was _her_ dork.

She smiled up at him.

“Want me to finish?” He held out his hand, and she gave him the hand he had not yet massaged.

“Thank you,” she said, grateful. She felt so much better than ten minutes ago.

“You think this is a hardship?” He sounded disbelieving. “What part of seeing you happy and relaxed and, ah, occasionally incoherent with pleasure—”

He gave her a glance from under his eyelids— a remarkable feat for a man his height— that made her think he had some plans for those days after her period, when she was so sensitive and so easily aroused.

Because they’d made love a few times, now, which was…

Well. _Helpful_ was, by far, the least of the positive adjectives she could bestow.

“— do you think is taxing?”

She opened her mouth for a smart retort, but then his thumbs dug into a knot in her dominant hand, and she gasped in from the combined pressure and relief. 

“I think when we get out of here, you could stand to see an actual massage therapist,” he murmured.

She had no idea what life would look like when they got out of there. Technically, she was dead, and he was a fugitive.

But it was the first time she’d ever heard him express plans for the post-war future.

“When we get out of here,” she echoed.

Something about that made him hesitate. “Lorena…”

“Mmm?” She studied his face.

“When we… get out of here,” he began again. He looked down, and focused on her hand with more concentration than was necessary. “I don’t…”

Her heart began to sink. She searched his expression. “Don’t— what? You are— are you—”

_Are you coming with us?_ She’d taken it for granted until that moment, but— would they send him back to prison, or—

“What I was going to say is, I don’t…” He licked his lip. “I can’t live in that house— again. I’m— sorry, I know it’s familiar— I—” His voice roughened and cracked.

Relief swept over her. Was that all? “Then we’ll find someplace else. Where we can all be happy.” Where he wouldn’t see the shadows of their bloody corpses out of the corners of his eyes.

He gave her hand a ludicrous and totally unnecessary grateful squeeze.

_When we get out of here._ Plans for their future. It sounded so good. “We’re— we’re doing all right… aren’t we?” She meant it to sound confident and happy, and hated the plaintive, small postscript that escaped her. 

He did not pretend to misunderstand. “We’re moving in the right direction,” he said, finally, with a heartbreaking inflection of not quite certainty.

What could she say to that? “Quartermaster, I’d like another,” she whispered.

He looked confused, then pulled her gently into his arms again.

“I love you,” she murmured against his neck. “Not just the man I knew, but who you are now. I love _you_ , Garcia.”

His breath stuttered, and his hands tightened on her. He swallowed. “I love you.” His voice was choked with tears. “All I want is good things for you. For Iris.”

She sat up and took his face firmly between her hands, and forced him to look at her. “Then believe me when I say that you are one of them, Garcia,” she told him quietly.

His eyes were red. He nodded once, sharply.

“I lost you and Iris once.” His voice was rough; he wiped half-heartedly at his eyes. “I didn’t understand how the world could still be turning, and you could both be— gone. Then you came back, and that felt impossible, too. Now?” He shook his head. “Every time we take one of these damn trips, I’m _terrified_. Anything could happen.”

She handed him the tissues, and said nothing. What _could_ she say? He wasn’t wrong, and her words, never eloquent at the best of times, failed her. 

He looked down, took her hand again, and continued to rub at its tight spots. The defiant set of his jaw made her already-wet eyes prickle.

Fear was a paralyzer, yet she had never seen him give in to the impulse to pull away from her, or from Iris. She didn’t make the mistake of assuming that meant it was easy.

“Your courage awes me,” she murmured, and got the expected blank look. But that didn’t mean saying it hadn’t been a good idea.

“How’s this feel?” he asked after a moment. He still sounded a little uneven.

“Much better. Thank you.”

His smile was a shadow of his earlier satisfied look, but nevertheless genuine. “This helps, you know,” he told her. “Every moment I spend with you, with Iris… the ghosts are a little less vivid.”

“This isn’t exactly a sacrifice, Garcia,” she managed.

He chuckled softly. “If you wanna stay in here, I’ll get Iris to bed, make your excuses, and bring you some supper.”

“You don’t have to do that either,” she began.

“I don’t mind.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of her palm. “I know the team can be a lot.”

He didn’t have to work very hard to convince her. “Yes, please.” The idea of another hour of peace and quiet felt like heaven. “But I’ll be in to say good night to Iris.” 

Maybe it made her a terrible parent, but the idea of letting Garcia fight the bedtime bathroom battles _also_ felt like heaven. “Thank you,” she added.

“Of course.”

“I love you,” she repeated. She willed him to hear all that she meant by it, and to believe her: she wasn’t talking about the Garcia she remembered, who was now gone, or the Garcia she’d anticipated growing old beside, who now would never exist in exactly the way she’d imagined. She loved _him_ , the Garcia right in front of her, who had just spent fifteen? twenty? minutes comforting her in the way he knew she needed right now.

He searched her face, his eyes wide and dark, his expression serious enough to break her heart. Finally, he mustered a tiny half-smirk. “I know,” he told her.

She snorted despite her relief. “Let’s skip the carbonite, darling.”

His smirk deepened, showing off those damned dimples of his. But, really, _I know_ was all she wanted. She had never doubted his love for _her_.

She tugged him down to her, and he obediently bent his neck. She kissed his forehead, and then his nose, and then, lightly, his mouth. She felt his sigh, and saw his shoulders ease down. He straightened up, cupped the back of her head, and kissed her forehead.

“I’d better go check on Iris,” he said. “What do you want for supper?”

“Whatever leftovers are less than three days old. I’m not all that hungry.” Another common period symptom, for her. But she’d eaten little enough today that she did need something tonight.

He nodded, kissed her hair again, and stood, letting himself out and closing the door behind him.

“Is Lorena okay?” Lucy asked, right outside.

Lorena was startled, but smiled despite herself as she settled back down. She missed her parents, her sister and brother-in-law, her niece and nephew, her friends. But maybe there were people here she could stand to get to know a little better.

Garcia’s reply was too low for her to catch; his and Lucy’s voices moved away from the door. Lorena felt a little guilty, letting him look after her like this. But she had enough self-awareness to know how she would react if their situations were reversed. That was the problem with two stubborn, loving people in a relationship: sometimes they tripped over each other’s generosity.

She felt relaxed enough to doze, the ache in her uterus distant and dull, now. In an hour she would go say goodnight to her daughter, their daughter, this miracle that had come from both of them. Then she would cuddle her husband, for as long as they got tonight. Maybe he would even sleep through the night. Tomorrow, she would set a timer to make herself take regular breaks as she worked, and marshal her arguments for Agent Christopher. Maybe as soon as this week, she’d be able to talk to her parents again. _God, yes, please._ And this week she’d reach out to Lucy.

One day at a time. One little choice at a time. Each moment in this challenging but inexpressibly sweet life, wrenched back from the grave for her and Iris by Garcia and Lucy and their team. Each hug from Iris, each kiss with Garcia, each time they all got to laugh together. Each small victory against the evil people who had come for her daughter and her husband. Each moment of love and life, no matter how painful. Because both were worth it…

She took a deep breath and sank deeper towards sleep, so that she would have the energy to keep fighting in the morning.


	6. Day +47

Garcia stood in the door of their bedroom, eyeing the main room with a combination of bemusement and… joy. The family Rittenhouse had killed, sitting with people with whom his relationships had mostly begun in bullets.

At the darkest point in his life, he’d believed redemption was just a bedtime story. He’d never been so glad to be wrong. Redemption for _him?_ That was… irrelevant. But for what he saw in front of him?

Even if some of these people still bugged the hell out of him sometimes— not naming any names, Wyatt— there was something deeply, profoundly _right_ about all of this. And if they could fix all this, then maybe… they could win. In the end. For good.

He started across the floor, because, in point of fact, he could actually only see one of his family. Lucy, curled up in a chair with a cup of tea, gave him an absent smile as he passed.

He moved to where Lorena sat beside Rufus and Jiya, the three of them leaning over two laptops, deep in conversation, and started opening cupboards. “Flynn, what are you… doing?” Jiya asked.

“Looking for escaped wildlife,” he told her seriously. “You have a renegade koala on the premises.”

Jiya looked at him blankly. Then a giggle escaped from behind the filing cabinet, and she made a face of understanding.

He’d known where Iris was the whole time, of course. She wasn’t very good at hiding. He peeked behind the filing cabinet and gently scooped her up. “Excuse me, miss, it’s bedtime,” he told her gravely.

“But I’m a knocker-knoll koala!”

 _What?_ Oh. Where she’d learned _nocturnal_ , he didn’t know. “See that?” He pointed to the overhead lights. “That’s the sun, which means it’s time for nocturnal koalas to sleep.”

Lorena was watching with amusement. Rufus looked like he wasn’t quite sure he could believe what he was hearing. He’d never been privy to the Flynn family bedtime ritual, apparently. But Garcia didn’t give one single damn. He had his girls back. Let the rest of them stare.

Lorena and Iris had been here a while, now, long enough to have more than settled in. But he tried to keep Iris out of the way whenever he could. He wasn’t afraid the team would hurt her, but they all had their jobs, in the fight against Rittenhouse. Jiya and Rufus liked Iris well enough, but they couldn’t maintain the Lifeboat effectively if they had a curious six-year-old underfoot. Lucy never minded Iris’s questions, but she got half as much done when she was fielding them. And…

Well, he also didn’t want to rub their happy family life in Lucy’s face. Not when things might have been… different, in another timeline. He believed that she was wholeheartedly happy for him, for all of them. He also knew she was lonely, and she missed her sister. Sometimes good things were complicated.

Besides all that? He was simply greedy for time with Iris.

“But when you put me to bed and turn the lights off, then it’ll be time for knocker-knoll koalas to be awake,” she argued, as he carried her inexorably towards her bedroom.

Garcia shifted her around so she could look forward. “Iris, if you don’t sleep, you’re gonna stunt your growth,” he warned her. In a stage whisper, he added, “Just look at Wyatt.”

Wyatt glanced up from surveillance footage, eyes narrowed, but he couldn’t very well flip Garcia off when he was holding a five-year-old. Then he looked down to Iris, and his face softened. 

Being around Iris, paradoxically, seemed to bring out a much less dumb side of Wyatt. Garcia might have been tempted to make jokes about similar levels of maturity, but the truth was, he was… grateful. He didn’t _trust_ Wyatt with her, of course. But Wyatt was kind to Iris, and Garcia knew it.

“Go to bed, Iris,” Wyatt said. “Unless you want to end up grouchy like your dad.”

Iris giggled in delight.

He put her down near her door, fairly confident that she wasn’t going to bolt for a new hiding place. She looked up at him, and slipped her little hand into his. “Are you going to check for monsters, Daddy?”

Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

“Y— yes,” he tried to say, but it felt like all the air in the room was gone. Like his skin was too small. Like he couldn’t feel half his body.

He heard silence behind him. Lorena knew. She had asked him, quiet and steely, _how did we die_ , and he could refuse her nothing. He’d choked out the whole story, and sobbed silently against her chest until he was sick in the wastebasket, from the searing memories, from the sheer horror, from the dizzying incongruity: she and Iris lived, but his grief was no less real.

Though the silence could have just been his ears not working, like the rest of him right now.

Lucy looked up from her book, and sat up, frowning. She knew him well enough to catch the change in his demeanor.

“Of— course,” he managed to choke out, his voice rough.

Iris watched him trustingly, and it felt like an expert blow to his heart.

“Hey, Iris,” Rufus said behind them. “I built a monster detector, want to see?”

Garcia managed to remember how to move, and looked over his shoulder. Rufus carried over what looked like a random piece of equipment. Then he poked at his phone, squatting so Iris could see both phone and… Garcia was pretty sure that was some supercharged stud finder, or something.

“So, here’s a monster…” He pulled up a picture of a… stone angel? and pressed something on the underside of the power pack, and the device emitted a shrill _beep!_

Iris’s eyes widened. She reached for the phone and the device. Under pretense of steadying her hand, Rufus pressed the button again, and Garcia had to be impressed with his sleight of hand.

“Yeah!” Iris tried to grab it.

“Hang on,” Rufus said. “I just gotta, uh… recalibrate it… ‘cause your bedroom’s smaller.” He turned his back and swapped the battery around, so it wouldn’t go off no matter what.

“Here.” He held it out. “Go forth and, uh, check for monsters.”

Iris grabbed it and scampered into her room eagerly. She shoved the thing under the bed, into her clothes rack, and into each corner. Then she waved it all over her room and even checked under her pillow.

“No monsters!” she said.

“Great!” Garcia had remembered how to breathe, though his throat ached. “Why don’t you, uh, go brush your teeth, and I’ll… hold down the fort.”

For once, Iris didn’t argue. She grabbed her pajamas and her sparkly turquoise bucket, the latter covered in koala stickers already streaked and messy from water, and scampered into the bathroom.

“… thank you,” Garcia said softly, watching her go.

“I didn’t do it for you, man.”

“I’m well aware. Still.”

Rufus hesitated, and nodded once.

“You need that back?” Where was it? Ah: Iris had left it on her pillow.

Rufus shook his head. “It’s broken. All it does is make noise. I had it out to see if we could fix it before we ordered a new one.”

“Ah.”

Rufus took a step away, hesitated, and turned back. “Look… Seeing her with you? I get it.”

Garcia looked at him blankly.

“I don’t agree. But I get why you did… what you did. I… don’t think anyone knows how close I came to punching Wyatt after Jessica took Jiya.”

Garcia snorted.

“And… even that was Wyatt trying to protect someone he loves.” He shook his head. “Love fucks you up.”

Garcia watched him.

“I guess what I’m trying to say,” Rufus finally continued, with palpable grudging, “is I can, maybe, one day, consider forgiving you. _But_ , not because you deserve it—”

“Because you’re a good man,” Garcia said quietly.

Rufus eyed him suspiciously, looking for any trace of mockery, but it was not there. His suspicion faded into looking abashed and confused. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Not sure how to take that coming from you.”

Garcia shrugged. “Sure you don’t need your, ah, tool back? Last call before it gets covered in koala stickers.”

Rufus frowned. “How are you even getting those?”

Garcia shrugged again.

“Whatever. No, she can keep it.”

Rufus went back to the table. Iris bounced out of the bathroom and stopped in front of Garcia expectantly.

“Bed,” he reminded her.

She pouted, but climbed under the covers. Then she scrambled out again.

“Iris, what are you—”

“I haven’t said my prayers.” She knelt beside her cot, bowed her head, and started in on the Lord’s Prayer.

Sudden rage swept over him as he watched her pray innocently, just like Lorena had taught her… just like she’d done That Night. And had it protected her? Had _God_ protected her?

And yet, she was alive again.

He had to turn away, and found Lorena in the doorway, watching them both. She knew something was up with him, but he shook his head once. Not now. Probably not ever. His quarrel was with God, not with her. He didn’t want them to fight about her faith.

Iris finished her prayer and climbed back into her cot, much more slowly than she’d left it. Lorena squatted on the floor and kissed Iris’s hair. “Sleep well so you have lots of energy to learn and play tomorrow, okay?”

“And koala,” Iris said.

Garcia and Lorena exchanged amused looks. As Iris’s current English teacher, it would probably be up to him to explain to her that that was not a verb.

“That, too,” Lorena said. She handed Iris Grumbly Bear and tucked them both in. Then she smoothed Iris’s hair back from her face. “Good night, baby.”

Garcia switched on the battered lamp so Lorena could turn out the overhead light on her way out the door. “Will you stay, Daddy?” Iris asked, already sounding sleepy, though she’d never admit it.

He had to swallow. “Of course, sweetheart.” It came out rough.

So he sat back against the wall by the head of her cot, and gently stroked her hair. His own eyes closed; parenthood meant having a child who perpetually had more energy than you did.

Despite his earlier anger, now faded, he knew he was in the presence of a miracle. So what the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

Everything that had happened to Iris in the old timeline was erased. He was the only wounded one, and he didn’t count that as important when his girls were alive again.

The room was dim and cold and echoing, despite the rug Agent Christopher had scrounged for them; the team’s voices sounded distantly through the door. It reminded him of another dark room, when he’d counted his life as acceptable collateral damage if it brought Lorena and Iris back. _What if he led you to me…_

How much did it matter _how_ it worked, as long as it did?

Iris’s breathing was slow and deep now. He used not wanting to get up too soon, and wake her from the edge of sleep, as his excuse to stay. He wiped his eyes as he silently drowned in gratitude, relief, grief, all dwarfing the anger he’d felt earlier. He didn’t understand… but in the end, he didn’t give a fuck about that. Not when Iris was alive again…

He blinked groggily. How long had he dozed for? The lights were still on outside, but he didn’t hear anyone. Iris was definitely asleep. He turned off the little lamp and waited, but she didn’t stir.

Joints and muscles getting older, and chilled by a long stint on a cold floor, were not the only reason he stood slowly. He knew he had to leave. He wasn’t going to spend the night in here. So he had to make himself walk out the door, with his ghosts and demons for company, and leave Iris here, alone. Just like she’d been…

He swallowed. His eyes had adjusted. He forced himself to take one step towards the light that showed around the door. The second was easier. And then he could walk freely, and he slipped through the door, pulling it silently shut behind him.

He blinked at the sudden light, though it was comparatively dim. Rufus, Jiya, and Wyatt had all gone to their rooms and turned off the main lights. Lorena and Lucy were sitting together at the far end of the big room, Lucy still curled up in her chair, Lorena slouched down in the loveseat with her feet propped up on the edge of Lucy’s chair.

They both looked up and saw him, and the combined warmth in their expressions humbled him. Lorena sat up a bit and patted the seat next to her invitingly. He glanced cautiously at Lucy, but saw no tension, none of those stiff little smiles she’d worn around Wyatt and Jess.

So he joined them, and didn’t worry when Lorena leaned against his shoulder. “Is she asleep?” Lorena asked.

“Mm-hmm.”

Lorena looked up at him knowingly. “You were asleep too, weren’t you.”

“Mm-hmm.” He swallowed a yawn.

“Lucy was telling me about Lucretia Mott.”

“Oh?” They’d technically met her, on a trip to stop Rittenhouse from spreading white supremacy, but Garcia’s exchange with her had been limited to _Run!_ By the time they’d gotten home, he’d been too exhausted to ask Lucy more about her.

Lucy explained a little about why she admired the woman so much, her eyes shining. “That was the trip you ran into those sailors,” she added, looking at him with a smirk.

Garcia’s danger sense tingled. He started to stand, but Lorena casually swung her legs over his lap. “Tell me about the sailors, Lucy,” Lorena said, her own smirk turning wicked.

Garcia resigned himself to not escaping this conversation with his dignity intact, and consoled himself with a sip from Lorena’s mug of tea. Ah, well. If he were honest with himself, there was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be right now, even if they were roasting him. Dignity was overrated anyway, right?

He smiled, and settled more comfortably against the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how I forgot to say this before, but all credit for the idea of Iris loving koalas goes to AndreaChristoph (sorry, I credited the wrong person before!).


End file.
